Monday, January 27, 2014

To borrow a phrase from Logos, who borrowed it from 4 Hero, this week I embark on a "cold mission." I'm heading to Seinäjoki in Finland to give a keynote speech at the Mars Festivaali. It takes place at 11 AM on Friday 31 January. More info here. (On the Wednesday 29 beforehand, I'm also speaking at a seminar at the Sibelius Academy (Helsinki's University of the Arts), but I don't think that one's open to the general public).

Cold Mission is actually one of the things I'll be talking about in the speech, which is titled "Retromania 2014"

Great eerie, unconnected-to-the-rest-of-the-song intro on Lorde's follow-up hit, which I'm starting to like even more than "Royals."

And wasn't she awesome on the Grammy's last night?

Oddly reassuring that the poptimist position on Lorde appears to be "a bad thing". As if gaucheness, ambivalence, adolescence (real as opposed to Simulacrum), and Thorstein Veblen should have no place in pop.

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Sorry to hear that Williamsburg's underground music venue 285 Kent is closing. Not long before moving out to the West Coast, I saw Oneohtrix Point Never perform there - a gritty, just barely repurposed warehouse with no heating and little lighting. Dead of winter it was and even inside the building so freezing you could see your breath in the air. It's the first and so far only time I've watched a gig wearing an overcoat, hat, scarf and gloves.